


What About Now?

by melliyna



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Universe, Kid Fic, M/M, cm: family verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 14:07:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melliyna/pseuds/melliyna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I would like to dedicate this to <a href="http://bluerosefairy.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://bluerosefairy.livejournal.com/"><b>bluerosefairy</b></a> for whom credit for the amazing beta and much of the good ideas of this piece must go, <a href="http://bessemerprocess.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://bessemerprocess.livejournal.com/"><b>bessemerprocess</b></a> for encouragement on twitter and to the wonderful community <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/cliche_bingo/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/cliche_bingo/"><b>cliche_bingo</b></a> the casual browsing therein providing the initial spark.</p>
    </blockquote>





	What About Now?

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to dedicate this to [](http://bluerosefairy.livejournal.com/profile)[**bluerosefairy**](http://bluerosefairy.livejournal.com/) for whom credit for the amazing beta and much of the good ideas of this piece must go, [](http://bessemerprocess.livejournal.com/profile)[**bessemerprocess**](http://bessemerprocess.livejournal.com/) for encouragement on twitter and to the wonderful community [](http://community.livejournal.com/cliche_bingo/profile)[**cliche_bingo**](http://community.livejournal.com/cliche_bingo/) the casual browsing therein providing the initial spark.

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[crack](http://melliyna.livejournal.com/tag/crack), [fandom: criminal minds](http://melliyna.livejournal.com/tag/fandom:+criminal+minds), [fic](http://melliyna.livejournal.com/tag/fic), [genre: gen](http://melliyna.livejournal.com/tag/genre:+gen), [rating: pg](http://melliyna.livejournal.com/tag/rating:+pg)  
  
---|---  
  
_**[Fic: Criminal Minds: What About Now?]**_  
**Title:** What About Now?  
**Author:** [](http://melliyna.livejournal.com/profile)[**melliyna**](http://melliyna.livejournal.com/)  
**Fandoms:** Criminal Minds  
**Pairings:** Hotch/Rossi (Mentioned past Gideon/Hotch)  
**Word Count:** 1,400  
**Rating:** FRT  
**Warnings:** Crack fic. That means: kid fic AU, the BAU as an actual family, sap. And more sap. Also, kid fic AU.Please be warned, there may be more in this universe to come ;)  
**Disclaimer:** Criminal Minds, the concept and the characters belong to their creator, CBS and their respective actors. I do this entirely for the fun of the enterprise, not for any profit.  
**Author's Note:** I would like to dedicate this to [](http://bluerosefairy.livejournal.com/profile)[**bluerosefairy**](http://bluerosefairy.livejournal.com/) for whom credit for the amazing beta and much of the good ideas of this piece must go, [](http://bessemerprocess.livejournal.com/profile)[**bessemerprocess**](http://bessemerprocess.livejournal.com/) for encouragement on twitter and to the wonderful community [](http://community.livejournal.com/cliche_bingo/profile)[**cliche_bingo**](http://community.livejournal.com/cliche_bingo/) the casual browsing therein providing the initial spark.

The urge to murder Jason Gideon had started two months in.

After a year, Dave knew that there was a part of him, bone deep and yet not so deep that would do it without hesitation if the man decided to try and come back to this family he'd left behind. Breakdown or no breakdown. You don't relinquish fatherhood then think you can ever retain the right to just walk back in when you feel your recovery is done. And that's not even covering what running did to Aaron, who somehow managed to hold it together, but just because he had the strength to do so, it doesn't mean he should have had to, ever.

Dave remembers when strong, smart, capable Derek (the family nickname is "Superman", though at twelve he has grown out of wearing the actual costume every single day), sobbing. Aaron, as a general rule, was the one, who gave hugs, but tonight, Dave is the one who's got a bundle of thirteen year old boy on the downstairs couch and Dave doesn't understand why he's sitting here, the couch springs digging into his back, giving this kid a hug. But this is his son and he won't have Derek blame himself for what is Gideon's failure. It's a failure that Dave cannot bring himself to understand or accept. And maybe it is ego, but Dave has to be better than that, better than the haunting glimpses of a parent disappeared.

Spencer couldn't sleep by himself for a long time. Every night, there would be a tiny little body, warm and curled between him and Aaron. Reid, thankfully, is the child who doesn't kick in his sleep, just likes to babble questions in the mornings, for which Dave is decidedly grouchy but happily present. Derek, who worried and tried to be the one who looked after everything that Aaron couldn't. Derek entertained Spencer, let Penelope play with whatever of his toys she wanted, and generally, just tried to help.

Emily, who is nine (and sometimes it feels like she's ten going on forty-five, in emotional maturity levels, though maybe that's just the look that Emily is very good at giving whenever Dave manages a particularly spectacular moment of idiocy), is Morgan's partner in crime, adventure and endeavor. That's the surface observation. There's also the way it was Emily who held Pen's hand when her little sister had to get a shot, who asked Dave for cooking lessons. All little but significant things. It's not really a surprise that she's the one who picks things up, in quiet ways. She and Aaron can be very alike, especially in the way they listen. Also, they both have a ridiculous love for dangerous rides involving water and rubber rafting devices that make Dave's brain itch and remember the necessity of emergency numbers and speed dials.

JJ (she's never Jennifer, somehow) was old enough to understand something was going on when Gideon left, but not old enough to understand why. At seven, she just about knows about an absence at soccer games, no more sneaking ice cream after a game. No more slipping candy at odd moments. Dave doesn't try to make up for all of it, but he does start going along to games.

Penelope, Penelope doesn't want to dance anymore. She gets scared when people leave, especially Aaron. Dave knew he'd endeared himself when she started asking him if they could dance together. And that small hand in his is another revelation in the book of life. That little girl in fairy wings, granting wishes with her wand. The day Penelope invited him to her dance recital might just have been one of the proudest days of his life and Dave and Aaron end up filling the memory card of their camera. Dave is not amazed that he voluntarily attended a classical ballet concert because there is no reason to be. It's Pen and she invited him. Of course he's going to be there.

Explaining to Spencer and Penelope, again, that Dad was gone might have been another reason why Dave can't extend the mercy of the Lord and Savior to Jason Gideon. Especially because he knows the stories and routines now; the idiosyncrasies of each kid that only a parent knows.

Spencer (a name which is sometimes shortened to Spence) can't get to sleep without a Dylan song, and there are certain songs that calm him down. The picture Aaron makes, holding Spencer as he sings him to sleep with one of the gentler songs, by the light of a particularly bizarre night light (and it really is a ridiculous-looking night light, but if something in the shape of a fat bunny rabbit painted green is going to help to make sure there are no nightmares, Dave will take it. It's one less nightmare of his own, to know that Spencer can sleep easy after a story from him and a song from Aaron. If you read to Spencer, the best way is to start with Where The Wild Things Are and then move on to In The Night Kitchen because he will notice the difference if you don't, especially if you don't do the voices right.

Penelope has a shelf of books along with her toy computer, and has her own routine. Dave reads, then Aaron sings (the fact that Penelope loves Bowie shouldn't surprise him, he supposes. They've just finished Matilda ("No Pen, parrots can't survive up our chimney") and at this point they are reading together through a book of stories from the ballet. He's watching, guiding her through the words, the letters, the sounds, but really it's all Penelope and her curiosity.

It's an incredible thing, Dave thinks, to be given the chance to watch this. To see this family that has slowly become his. JJ is the Little House Books, Emily is The Enchanted Forest Chronicles and Narnia, and he's also reading The Lord of the Rings to both Emily and Morgan. Who would have thought it? Dave, still bewildered, can't understand this himself. A cascade of dance recitals (Penelope), soccer games (JJ), parent-teacher conferences for three of the five kids which started because Aaron is a gentleman and Emily's teacher is moon-eyed, but as it turns out, Dave keeps going. He finds, strangely, he has a knack for this. Even if it's discovering that sometimes, Aaron can be the biggest kid of them all sometimes.

Dave's favorite example of the way Aaron can be a big damn kid is found when he discovers another of the family in-jokes. That is, when you take Papa to the water-park, there's a flip of a switch and Aaron's inner ten year old boy appears. After all, he does let Emily ride on the water-slide seven times and honestly, Dave isn't entirely sure which one of the pair was actually more excited when they got off. Then there's the fact that at some point in the afternoon JJ, Morgan and Emily will end up making a ridiculous amount of noise, splashing and more noise because Papa is over there, teaching them the best way to do cannonballs. This is why Dave is happily delegated to 'Spencer and Penelope' duties which mostly involve the kiddie pool and keeping one sharp eye on the two of them and the other eye on a paperback.

The dual focus is one of those inherent characteristics of being a chef and an FBI agent, but with parenting, you learn to distinguish when your four year old has managed to persuade your two and a half year old into a nefarious scheme involving 'playing mermaids' and holding your breath for the longest possible time. Penelope Garcia Hotchner has the kind of imagination common to many four year olds, but then something else, the kind of imagination that makes Dave proud that this little being could spin a potentially-dangerous tale around you, make you believe it and remain endearing. Even if she was firmly convinced her youngest brother was an aquatic being (possibly, Dave thinks, he shouldn't have let her watch The Little Mermaid quite so many times) and her older brother was a Prince.

It's the kind of detail, the kind of story you learn, when you find yourself a parent.


End file.
